Ed Ranks Clue Rooms

Part III of III.

Okay... this is it, folks. The conclusion of the amazing Clue/Cluedo trilogy. The fantastic murder mystery board game where Mr. Boddy/Dr. Black is murdered by one of six suspects with one of six weapons in one of nine rooms.  And where does this grizzly murder take place?  Why, in an English country house called Tudor Mansion (sometimes also called Tudor Close, Tudor Hall, Boddy Manor or Boddy Mansion).

Here are the rooms in Tudor Mansion, ranked:

9. Hall - How boring is a hall? I mean really! And I know that in an old mansion a "hall" isn't just like the narrow hallway in your house that leads to bedrooms and stuff. Here, hall is referring to something more like a "great halls" of castles and stuff, that eventually evolved into eating, relaxing and entertainment chambers in 16th and early 17th century manor houses.  Still though, you can perform all these types of functions already in the other, much cooler, rooms in Tudor Mansion.  I would hate to be murdered in the damn hall.

A totally unnecessary room and a waste of money. 

8. Ball Room - Speaking of terrible places to die, how awful would it be reading someone's obituary to learn that they died in a ball room? If I saw that someone died in a ballroom, I assume it would be a woman in her 80's who died from the vigorous exercise contained within a slow waltz.  If I had a mansion I would not include a lame ball room. I'd have to turn this into something else. A huge walk-in closet, perhaps? Oh shit... maybe a panic room! Mr. Boddy seems like the guy who would need a panic room, what with people always trying to murder him. Oh... no... wait... I changed my mind again. Bar. I would put a bar here instead.

7. Dining Room - I'm all about open floor plans. Why do the kitchen and the dining room have to be separate? Just knock down the walls and turn them into one big room. Yeah, yeah. I know. This is a mansion so you're not supposed to see the servants doing the work. You're just supposed to sit at the ornate dining room table and have those peasants bring stuff to you. I don't care though. That king orf attitude is exactly why someone is probably going to murder you. And if you died in a dining room wouldn't the most likely cause be poison? Poison isn't even a weapon in regular clue. That's some Master Detective Clue shit there. And I can't add in stuff from Master Detective in these rankings or else I'd also have to add in stables, gazebos, drawing rooms, horseshoes, Madam Rose, Sgt. Grey, M. Brunette, Miss Peach, etc.)

6. Lounge - I suppose the lounge is like the equivalent of living room or something, right? This isn't all that interesting, but at least the lounge has a secret passage in it. That gives it some awesome points. Secret passages are so cool. I want to build one in my living room. Too bad I like in an apartment. My neighbors would be like, "WHAT THE FUCK?!" if I chiseled through the living room wall to try to build a secret passage to my balcony.  And I guess the living room already has a sliding door to the balcony, so the whole thing would be a bit silly.

Pictured: A quite decent room... FOR MURDER!!!

5. Study - A study is a solid place to murder someone. First of all, it's meant to be a quiet room, generally for one person to be isolated in and, well (as the name implies), study. A comfortable leather chair, a desk, and maybe a couple of books borrowed from the library. When Mr. Boddy is chilling in his study by himself - it would be the perfect time to come up from behind and bust his head open with a lead pipe. And, like the Lounge, bonus points to the study for having a secret passage. In this case, the secret passage goes to the kitchen. So if all that murdering makes the murderer a bit hungry, he or she can go grab a sandwich. Convenient!

4. Billiard Room - How cool is it to have an opulent enough mansion to have your own billiard room in it? I know it's the 21st Century and so that might seem a little old-fashioned, but this room is the equivalent of the modern day game room.  I'd love a billiard room. I'd probably have a little more than just billiards in there, though. Maybe get one of those combo pool tables that you can flip it over and have air hockey as well. Air hockey is SWEET. I'd still want to keep it a little old school though. Maybe hang up some giant, framed neoclassical paintings in the room. Give it a high ceiling and a chandelier. You know what? Forget the chandelier. Too damn hard to clean. If this room needs more lighting we can just use some candles. After all, I just saw a convenient-placed candlestick laying around nearby.

3. Kitchen - As alluded to previously, the kitchen is one of those secret passage rooms. Awesome. The kitchen is a great place to kill someone. Why? Knives. The ultimate solution to clue is "Mrs. White, in the Kitchen, with the Dagger."  It's so perfect because Mrs. White is the domestic servant character (and would thus likely work in the kitchen), and the kitchen probably has a lot of knives in it. I know if I found Mr. Boddy laying dead with a knife in the back in the kitchen, Mrs. White would be suspect #1. Unless it was someone else trying to make it LOOK like Mrs. White. Damn you're clever, Colonel Mustard. Trying to throw everyone off by not using your crazy pirate revolver!

Oh me? Just CHILLIN' IN MY
PRIVATE HOME LIBRARY!

2. Library - If I ever have a mansion, which I likely will not, it will ABSOLUTELY have a library in it. In fact, if I ever own any house I'm just doing to make sure it has a library. Lots of dark wood paneling, wall to wall bookshelves, a nice comfortable chair and couch. Some tables. Yeah. I'd spend all my time here. Who needs a separate Study when you can just study in the library? This is another one of those situations where I'd knock down a wall with the Study (they are next to each other) and just make a bigger library. I probably don't have enough books to fill a library, but I'm sure I can solve that problem. Maybe go to some white elephant sales. Or find out where all those restaurants get their books from. You know how a lot of restaurants have old books on shelves in them for ambiance? Where the hell do all those books come from? Also like the study... this is a great place to commit a murder! You just sneak up on someone reading their book and kill 'em. Just don't use the revolver. Too loud. This is a library, for God's sake. SHHHHHH!!!!

1. Conservatory - You are absolutely a one-percenter if you have a Conservatory in your house. How awesome is that? You have a mansion large enough to essentially have a greenhouse inside of your actual house. I see this place as being lined with glass walls, with some temperature controls in it, maybe some plumbing built in that include misters that occasionally mist all of the rare, expensive orchids in it. I don't even like orchids. But if I was rich enough to have a conservatory, I would simply HAVE to include orchids in the room. The conservatory would need to be facing the back of the mansion though, not the front. I don't need everyone to be all in my business with those glass walls. Wait... this is the second time I've used the term "glass walls" in this paragraph and I'm just now realizing the word I should be using is "window." Whatever.  The point is, this being at the back of the house also is more convenient for installing its secret passage and making sure that any murders that happen in it go unseen.

Well, there you have it folks. Now you see that Mrs. Scarlet killing someone in the Conservatory with the Candlestick is probably about as good as life can get. I mean, except for Mr. Boddy. Because he'd be murdered. 

Ed Ranks Clue Weapons

Part II of III. 

Remember that Clue thing from last time? Uh huh. Well, now we're talking about the weapons. Like the suspects, there are six of them.

How does this old thing still even work?

6. Revolver - Isn't it just a bit impersonal to kill a person with a gun? All the other weapons require some actual physical contact with the person. Stabbing. Blunt force trauma. Choking the last breaths of life out of them.  Those seem like much more cool ways to kill people. Plus guns are super loud. How are you going to secretly kill someone with loud gun bang?  No sir, if you want to murder Mr. Boddy, I highly recommend you look elsewhere in the mansion and find a much more awesome weapon.  Besides, the revolvers they use in this game look like some type of old-time pirate weapon. Is Mr. Boddy supposed to be the Captain of a Spanish galleon? If not, I'm not sure what you're doing killing him with this thing.

5. Rope - I gotta give the rope credit for being visually interesting and different. While all the other weapon tokens in the game were made from metal - the rope was made from white plastic. Still, rope doesn't seem like the most effective murder weapon. Suicide? Sure! Hanging is a great way to kill yourself if that's how you want to end it all. But to kill someone else? First you have to get that rope around their neck. How are you going to do that? And are you strong enough to strangle them with the rope? Will the rope snap first? If you want to hang them - do you have a good, high-up space to drop them from? Sure, it's easy to hang someone when you have the law on your side and a bunch of old west deputies to make sure that the hang-ee doesn't escape. But when you're alone and committing a murder... this simply seems like too much work.

Very sleek looking. It would look even sleeker... in someone's back!

4. Dagger - See? This has that personal touch that the revolver just doesn't. If you want to murder someone, you might as well go up to them with a long, sharp thrusting weapon and just stab the hell out of them until they die. Watch out, this is going to get messy pretty quickly. You might want to wear a rain jacket or something.

3. Wrench (aka "Spanner") - I think every time I see a monkey or pipe wrench in real life, I think about Clue. Do I think about adjusting hex nuts, bolts or sockets? No. Do I think about installing a new shower head in the bathroom to get some more water pressure? No. Do I think about fixing my car? No. Do I think about the wrench being caked in day-old dry blood on the floor of a conservatory, laying next to a cold corpse? ABSOLUTELY.

2. Lead Pipe - There is just something stone cold about grabbing a lead pipe and beating someone to death with it. As you can see from these highest ranked weapons, I really seem to have a thing for blunt force trauma to the head.  Also, the original UK game apparently used real lead in the lead pipe game piece. You know, lead... the thing that poisons you when you stick in in your mouth. Yeah, so this game piece probably did lead to a couple of killings.

FUN!

1. Candlestick - There is just something so awesome about murdering some old, rich man in a mansion with a candlestick. I'm not quite sure what it is. For one, it's probably the fact that only old, rich men with mansions even have candlesticks.  Do you have a candlestick in your home? Who the hell has candlesticks? As far as I'm concerned, the only purpose of a candlestick is to be used to beat some rich person to death in a mansion full of secret passages. Every time I see Lumière in Beauty and the Beast, I assume the Beast is just one minute away from grabbing him and beating Cogsworth to death. 

Ed Ranks Clue Suspects

Part I of III.

Clue, also known as Cluedo in the UK, is a murder mystery board game. Surely you've heard of it, right? I already ranked board games way back near the beginning of this blog. Get with the picture, people! There was a movie with Tim Curry in it!

Anyway, it has six characters who are suspects in the murder of Mr. Boddy (aka Dr. Black).  These are those suspects, ranked:

6.  Mrs. Peacock - Nobody likes Mrs. Peacock. Who wants to play as Mrs. Peacock? She's some elderly grand dame that wears a bunch of tweed and stuff. She's definitely the type of old lady who married into money years ago and then killed her husbands so that she could marry into more money. I BET SHE DID IT!

5. Mrs. White - She's generally always depicted as some sort of guilty-looking servant. Like a cook or a maid or something. I bet she has a ton of motive to kill Mr. Boddy. Remember the old mystery cliche "the butler did it"? Well... here you go... Mrs. White. She's the help. She's probably shitting in your pie right now.  If we were ranking this by the Clue movie alone (which I'm not), then she'd obviously be much higher. Why? Because in the movie she's Madeline Fucking Kahn. And she sort of steals a lot of those "black widow" vibes in the movie that I associate with Mrs. Peacock in the board game. Except younger and hotter because she was Madeline Kahn.

4. Professor Plum - I generally played as this guy. Why? Because he's Purple and that's the best color. And because I had an older brother and I'm sure my older brother would claim dibs on Colonel Mustard.  Like Mrs. White - this is a character who is super cool in the movies because he's played by Dr. Emmett Brown. I'm sure Dr. Emmett Brown has a real name or something, but who cares. It's Doc Brown. In the board game, Professor Plum is generally the smart, intellectual college professor with the pipe and bow tie. You can tell this sneaky fuck is up to no good.

Tim Curry makes the popped collar look good. 

3. Reverend / Mr. Green - This suspect is definitely a lot more interesting in the British version of the game than in the US version.  In the UK, he's Reverend Green - an Anglican priest. How cool is it that a Reverend is a murder suspect?  He's so bad with that whole "Thou Shall Not Kill" commandment thing.  Alas, in the U.S. the people at Parker Brothers figured that American audiences weren't yet ready for a killer Reverend. For that reason, in the U.S. he was depicted as more of a slick suit-wearing mobster-type. In the movie he was Mike McKean, so that's cool, right?  There he was given a different spin as a blackmailed homosexual and/or a secret FBI agent. I guess it depends on which ending you prefer (recommendation: THAT ENDING!).

2. Colonel Mustard - I learned the word "Colonel" from this character. Obviously the first thing I thought to myself as a child was, "Why the hell is it spelled like that if it's pronounced Ker-null?"  I'm sure my parents had to then explain to me how all the rules regarding the English language that the teachers taught me at school should often just be ignored. ANYWAY, BACK TO THE POINT -- this awesome dude is like that English game hunter from the early 20th Century that you can imagine going to Africa, killing all sorts of giant, endangered animals, and laughing about it years later as he drinks whisky out of his decanter while in a smoke-filled lounge. This guy will ALWAYS be English in my head with the stiff upper lip, monocle, and grand mustache. I don't even think about Martin Mull when I think of the Clue movie. I just replace the image in my head with that guy who played Captain Peacock in Are You Being Served? Which is odd, because that guy's name is Peacock and not Mustard. Wouldn't I confuse him with Mrs. Peacock instead? No, of course not. That's dumb.

1.  Miss Scarlett - The sexy femme fatale of Clue. You just know this chick likes to murder, don't you? Hence the "fatale" part of "femme fatale."  In the very first edition in the UK in the 1940s she was a young, blonde bombshell.  In the 1972 US version (the one that I grew up with) she was an Asian woman wearing a black dress and smoking a cigarette through a long cigarette holder. In the 1980s movie she was Lesley Anne Warren and she was being blackmailed because she was a sarcastic madame in charge of a high-roller escort service. I mean what character is cooler than that? 

Ed Ranks Olsens

There are a ton of Olsens out there. I can't rank every single one of them.  Here are ten Olsens, ranked:

10. Mary-Kate Olsen - When Heath Ledger's body was found by a masseuse (weird)... the first person the masseuse called was not the police, but Mary-Kate Olsen (also weird).  What's up with that? Was Mary-Kate Olsen part of some crazy conspiracy to kill Heath Ledger? Damn you, Mary-Kate fore preventing us from A Knight's Tale 2.

9. Scott Olsen - Pitcher for the Florida Marlins. Meh.

8. Ashley Olsen - Mary-Kate's twin sister, so pretty much the same, right? I can't rank them that far apart. This one didn't murder Heath Ledger though. ALLEGEDLY!!!  There, now I assume I can't be sued?

7. John Olsen - He was the 42nd Premier of South Australia. Did any of the people below on this list become Premiers of South Australia? No!

6. Susan Olsen - Cindy Brady on The Brady Bunch. Remember? The youngest one in curls.

5. Merlin Olsen - Hall of Fame NFL American football player and TV color commentator. Solid career. Plus an awesome name.

4. Bjørnar Olsen - Speaking of awesome names, this guy only gets ranked because his name is  Bjørnar!!!! Holy crap, how cool of a name is that? Who is this guy? Some Norwegian archaeologist or something.

3. Ole Olsen - A Danish speedway rider and three-time World Champion. 

2. Jimmy Olsen - Can I rank a fictional character mixed up with real people? Sure.  This is Superman's buddy who works for the Daily Planet.

1. Elizabeth Olsen - Scarlet Witch, who has no culpability in the murder of Heath Ledger [ALLEGEDLY!!!], like her sisters. Still, it's weird that she and Aaron Taylor-Johnson played brother-and-sister and then husband-and-wife in back-to-back movies, right?

Ed Ranks Batman's Rogues Gallery

A couple of notes first:

• Deathstroke the Terminator? Yeah, he's awesome but he's technically more of a Teen Titans rogue.
• Joe Chill, Salvatore "The Boss" Maroni, and all those other common criminals/gangsters?  I'm not ranking them.  They're bad guys but they're not really, "rogues," are they? 
• Vandal Savage? Awesome AF, but I'd say he's a Green Lantern rogue more than a Batman rogue. 

So, here we go: 

Behold: A Stupid Character

25. Man-Bat - Awful. Can you imagine if Spider-Man had an enemy named ManSpider? If Wonder Woman had an enemy named WomanWonder? If Professor X had an enemy named XProfessor? 

24. Solomon Grundy - This is Frankenstein. Batman is fighting Frankenstein. DC Comics wasn't even trying.  Hugo Award-winning science fiction author Alfred Bester is credited with creating Grundy. Do you know who really created him? Mary Shelley. Because it's Frankenstein.

23. Black Mask - Another copycat... this time a fake Red Skull (but BLACK instead of RED!). How lame was this guy? He never even appeared in Batman: The Animated Series. And they dug deep and put, like, EVERY character into that show. 

22. Victor Zsasz - Created in the 1990's. He doesn't even have a cool code name. Similar to how wrestlers stopped having cool names like "The Undertaker" and "The Rock" and just went by their actual names like "Brock Lesnar." BORING. He's barely even a "rogue" and I almost left him off the list. 

21. Firefly - A boring pyromaniac. In about 5 minutes I could create a more interesting pyromaniac character with a better backstory. My made up character would definitely be a lady and when she sets shit ablaze she rocks YOU-KNOW-WHAT song by The Cult. That's right, you guessed it, Love Removal Machine. 

20. Calendar Man - Lame, cheesy 1950’s villain that’s only interesting or relevant to anyone these days because his somewhat "gritty reboot"-like reemergence in The Long Halloween. That limited series is critically acclaimed and was one of the key inspirations for Chris Nolan's Batman Trilogy. You know what character was removed when adapting that inspiration into those great films? Worthless, boring Calendar Man, that's who. 

19. Hush - Don't you hate it when a series introduces a brand new character and tries to make it seem like that character has been around all along?  In 2003 "Hush" was launched as a limited series and Bruce Wayne all of a sudden had a best friend since childhood that we're supposed to pretend always existed like when they added Dawn to Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Then... WHAT A TWIST... that Bruce Wayne best friend is revealed to secretly be a villain! This could have all been done much better if they had actually taken an established character that was a good guy / ally of Batman and been willing to turn them evil. But then again, the whole "Batman's old friend is now his enemy" character already exists with TwoFace/Harvey Dent-- rendering this Hush guy completely worthless. 

Quake in fear, purveyors of organic textiles!

18. Killer Moth - Does the idea of a moth inspire fear for anyone? The only hero who should have a moth in their rogues gallery should be a  hero named "The Dressmaker." This shit character was created for the 60's Batman TV show and was meant to debut both in the TV show and comics around the same time. But the TV episode was never actually aired. Can you imagine how bad a villain must be if the 1960's Batman producers were like, "Nah... this guy is too campy. Let's do King Tut and Lord Marmaduke Ffogg instead." 

17. Ventriloquist - What would the world be like if Edgar Bergen was an evil bank robber who committed crimes with his imaginary, hand-controlled sidekick, Charlie McCarthy? Nobody cares. Nobody has cared about ventriloquists for over half a century. Most people reading this likely have no idea who Edgar Bergen is. This straight up seems like a terrible 1950's Batman villain... and yet shockingly this character debuted the same year that Die Hard and Beetlejuice came out. Because ideas for new rogues are HARD. 

16. Clayface - Clayface never sat well with me as part of the Batman universe. Batman rogues were always more "real," like normal people who lead a life of crime in some silly costume. Clayface is like a magical, super-powered shape-shifter. 

15. Killer Croc - Kind of the same as above, but a little better since he's just got some odd genetic mutation that gives him scaled skin. Slightly more believable. 

14. Mad Hatter - Yes, another stolen character. So why am I not giving Mad Hatter as much shit for being stolen from Lewis Carroll / Alice in Wonderland as I'm giving Solomon Grundy for being a Frankenstein ripoff? Because at least they admit it's a ripoff and work it into the story. This character is just supposed to be a crazy guy who's obsessed with Alice and and quotes it all the time. If we can let Tom Petty get away with ripping this off for Don't Come Around Here No More then we can let DC comics slide on it too. 

See? Neckbeard.

13. Hugo Strange - AKA Dr. Neckbeard. Slightly boring, but at least he's one of Batman's original villains (he debuted in February 1940... two months BEFORE the Joker) and was the first in the comics to ever figure out, "Hey I've never seen this Batman guy at the same time as Bruce Wayne." Batman: The Animated Series also redefined him as the guy in charge of Arkham Asylum, which made him more interesting and finally helped to explain the whole, "How the hell do all these wackos keep getting released from Arkham?" problem in Batman.  Because the guy who runs it is also a crazy villain. Sweet. 

12. Deadshot - A sniper. He's good at shooting things from far away. Okay, sure. 

11. Scarecrow - Cillian Murphy is awesome in Batman Begins, but other than this cool adaption of Scarecrow, when was he ever THAT interesting? I guess the whole "fear" thing is cool, but don't get me started on how fucking lazy comic writers are in giving characters "real names." Scarecrow is named Johnathan Crane and was, according to DC comics lore, bullied as a child due to his resemblance to Ichabod Crane.  FIRST OF FUCKING ALL... isn't it a  convenient coincidence that he just happened to have the exact same last name? Second... Ichabod Crane is a fictional character from a short story written in 1820. How many children make fun of other children by alluding to 19th century speculative fiction from a collection of 34 essays by Washington Irving? Those are some educated-ass bullies who tormented him. Obviously he went to a private school. Were the bullies also like, "Hahaha, you are physically unattractive as Hephaestus was described by Homer as in The Iliad 18.397."  How do these kids even know what Ichabod Crane looks like to say that Johnathan looked like him? Are they basing their comparison on Disney's 1949 film The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad? I really doubt any kid looks like that. The only person that looks like that is Prince Charles. 

Ouch.

10. Bane - Like the above, was never really that interesting until Chris Nolan made him interesting. He was just a steroided up Luchadore.  

9. Ra's al Ghul - Hey, this guy has a pit that can regenerate him like Wolverine! Oh wait... wrong comic company. 

8. Riddler - The concept of a rogue who leaves riddles as clues at his crime scenes is at least interesting. The riddles are quite often terrible though. And I don't always mean in a "bad pun" way (although sometimes I do) - but sometimes the riddles are super easy (yet Batman struggles with them) or super hard/obscure (and Batman somehow figures them out instantly).  Let's take shitty Batman Forever as an example: "If you look for numbers on my face, you won't find thirteen any place." It's a clock. Easy! Batman doesn't have to be a super detective to figure that out.  An eight year old can figure that one out. But then the movie also has that TOTAL BULLSHIT riddle with the numbers 13, 18 and 5 representing M, R and E.  The 13th, 18th and 5th letters of the alphabet correspond to M, R and E. Corresponding numbers to letters is easy and not that challenging. Sure, Batman could do that pretty quickly. Yet from those three fucking letters, Batman is somehow able to deduce that M, R and E stand for "Mr. E," which sounds like "mystery," and one synonym for mystery is "enigma." Therefore the villain must be "E. Nigma," which just happens to be short for "Edward Nigma" - the identity of the Riddler.  By the way, this is also another terrible example of a coincidental and convenient name. OH, THE GUY WHO MAKES RIDDLES JUST HAPPENS TO HAVE THE BIRTH NAME OF E. NIGMA! WOW!  Seriously though, that last riddle makes no fucking sense. Here is a similar deduction using the same bullshit, random, illogical "logic:" M-R-E must stand for "Meal, Ready-to-Eat," a lightweight packaged meal given to US military members on deployment. A synonym for M-R-E is "Field Ration." Therefore the villain must be named "F. Ration! Quick Robin, to the phone book to arrest anyone with that name!" 

7. Penguin - No way anyone has a nose that looks anything like this. I'd say that having an umbrella as a weapon is lame... but I'll be honest... every time I held an umbrella as a child I used to pretend I could shoot gas or bullets at people with it because the Penguin. So I guess that's cool. 

So. Much. Leather.

6. Catwoman - Someone who took the "cat burglar" thing a little too literally. IT'S A FIGURE OF SPEECH, SELENA KYLE! And the way she dresses isn't really that practical for committing crimes. Who commits crimes in tight leather? Doesn't the leather squeak and cause too much noise for stealth? However, her outfit is practical for earning several hundred dollars-an-hour to sexually dominate middle-aged businessmen. If you ask me, that sounds like a more stable and profitable line of work than stealing jewelry. And isn't it a bit sexist that a female villain always wants to steal jewelry? 

5. Poison Ivy - Awesome! She's like an aggressive PETA person but with plants instead of animals. The Uma Thurmon version was terrible though, and let us never speak of it again. 

4. Harley Quinn - Proof that a character created in recent history can actually wind up being awesome. Only created for the animated series in the 1990s, this character was the Joker's psychiatrist - who the joker slowly drove crazy over time until she was even nuttier than him. And while the classic "court jester" costume from the animated series with jingling bells is certainly iconic, I didn't see too many people object to the Margot Robbie version that wore... uhh... considerably less. 

ICE-Y WHAT YOU DID THERE.

3. Mr. Freeze - Old school Mr. Freeze is a pretty lame rogue and a "joke" villain. But beginning in the 1990's, the comics and animated series began to simultaneously make him more of a tragic figure and brilliant cryogenicist looking for a cure for his terminally-ill wife, Nora. The New Batman Adventures episode "Cold Comfort" is probably one of the most gripping, interesting stories about the downfall of a desperate and morally conflicted man that was ever produced. It's essentially a twenty-something minute version of "Breaking Bad" but with a blue freeze ray instead of blue meth. Oh, and also he turns into a robot spider.  Wouldn't it have been sweet if Brian Cranston turned into a robot spider at the end of Breaking Bad? The addition of the tragedy trope to the Mr. Freeze story made him much more interesting. Even the awful Batman & Robin film tried to use this rebooted depiction of Mr. Freeze - although they should have used an actor with a little more gravitas and subtlety than Arnold Schwarzenegger if they wanted to do it right.  Just imagine how well this character could be done in a Chris Nolan universe with a good actor and dynamic script? It would be up there with the Molina Doc Ock. 

2. Two-Face - Harvey Dent is awesome for the same reason the Mr. Freeze update was awesome - he's a tragic figure and fallen hero. Dent was the Gotham District Attorney who helped to put away the bad guys. Then he's deformed in a way that splits his face/body in half and turns into a villain. As part of the "half" gimmick he flips a coin. Everything is decided by random 50/50 chance. In the comics (and Batman Forever) the deformity is caused by a gangster throwing acid on his face in court. In the animated series, he's Bruce Wayne's best bud for a number of episodes with a repressed dissociative identity disorder that is set free after an explosion at a chemical plant scars half of his body. As always, the Nolan Batman Trilogy probably told the story best when they adapted the Joker's The Killing Joke story from the comics and adopted it so that the Joker drove good-guy Harvey Dent into madness. Whatever origin story for Dent you think is the best, the end result is cool-looking, interesting rogue who is obsessed with chance and fate. 

1. Joker - This is sort of obvious, isn't it? 

Ed Ranks Things for Astronauts to Do while Waiting for a Rocket Launch

I know this ranking will have limited use to most readers given that A) you're probably not an astronaut, and B) the American Space Shuttle program was discontinued in 2011 and therefore even if you are an astronaut there aren't very many chances to get launched into space.

Still, you never know. This ranking might be useful for someone out there one day.

8. Smile politely at all the other astronauts around you and shrug your shoulders - You really don't have much else to do, do you?

7. Ask for a bathroom break - Fun fact! If you're all strapped into the shuttle/rocket and you suddenly need to go, all you have to do is ask and they have to stop the countdown and let you out.  It's certainly an option, but avoid it if possible. This will really piss off the hundreds of other people working at Mission Control and cost the government millions of dollars.

6. Go to Ron Jon Surf Shop in nearby Cocoa Beach - This one assumes you're launching from Cape Canaveral and depends on how long you have to wait until the launch. If this is just a 30 minute delay or so, you obviously won't have time to do this. But if the weather is bad and the launch might get pushed off a whole day or more... then now might be the perfect time to consider buying one of those "Mr. Zog's Sex Wax®" shirts.

5. Befriend an alligator - And if indeed you are in Cape Canaveral there are lots of Alligators there. You probably need a pen pal anyway.

4. Finally write than screenplay you've been thinking about - This one is self explanatory.

3. Catch up on Karruche Tran's Instagram feed - Satellite reception is probably going to be bad up there in space, so now is your chance to like all of her pictures.  Yeah, I know it sounds contradictory that satellite reception would be worse in space considering that's where the satellites are! But the satellites are POINTED at Earth, so you need to factor that in.

2. Do everything you can to avoid thinking about Soyuz 1, Soyuz 11, STS-51-L, and STS-107 - Try not to think about these at all when you're strapped in your chair and ready to launch. You'll be a nervous wreck.

1. Call Your Mom - You never call enough and she wants to hear from you.

Ed Ranks Other Things "Ta-Nehisi Coates" Could Be

"Coates" is pronounced "kōts," so technically if you walked into the middle of a conversation about "Ta-Nehisi Coates" and you had never heard of him before, you could assume something else.  Here are some options.

10. Houses for pigeons - Don't get me wrong here.  A "cote" (yes, pronounced kōt) is an archaic word meaning a shelter for mammals or birds. It's derived from the same old words for dwellings that gave us "cottage." But in the unlikely chance you ever hear "cote" used in the modern day, it's likely referring to a shelter for pigeons. Yeah, I know... most people just say "coop." A "Ta-Nehisi" could easily be some fancy breed of pigeon, couldn't it? And therefore "Tanehisi Cotes" could refer to houses for these unique pigeons.

See how this list is going to go?  If you didn't like that then I can assure you... it doesn't get any better from here.

9. A country or something, right? - No, it's not. You're thinking of Côte d'Ivoire.

A fine Moroccan dish served at Ta-Nehisi Coates Restaurant.

8. A Moroccan-French restaurant - Similar to the above, you know that "Coates" sounds like the French "Côte" (meaning "coast"). But you also know that "Ta-Nehisi" doesn't sound French at all. What the hell is that? Probably African, right? Where did the French colonize Africa? Morocco or something?  Let's go with a Moroccan-French Restaurant. Maybe it serves seafood and that's why it mentions the French word for coast?

7. That New Zealand actor who is in everything - Could "Ta-Nehisi" be a Māori name? I suppose it could. But you're probably thinking about Cliff Curtis. Don't feel ashamed for mixing this guy up with someone of a different race. That's what Hollywood does in almost everything he's in.

6. An upmarket hummus brand - Ta-Nehisi Coates could certainly be a Levantine chickpea and tahini spread. I mean Ta-Nehisi sounds so much like Ta-Hini.

5. Waterproofing wood protector for your deck - Apply just one coat of Ta-Nehisi© and you'll seal and prevent water damage to wood, concrete and brick. It allows wood to gray naturally. Wipe surface dry after 5-10 minutes.

4. Coat-of-arms for an Egyptian family - Okay, if you thought this then I guess you at least get partial credit. You were somehow smart enough to know that "Ta- Nehesy" was the general designation that the Egyptians called Nubia. But if you were smart enough to know that then you should have already known who the hell Ta-Nehisi Coates was. So you know what? On second thought - no partial credit. 

3. Descriptor for a snowy mountain - Just look at those beautiful coats of snow on the proud Ta-Nehisi Mountain, the tallest of all the peaks in northern Sudan.

Behold a Western Tanehisi and its fabulous spotted coat. 

2. Fur of an animal - Similar to #10 above, a "Ta-Nehisi" could easily be some type of exotic animal you haven't heard of before. Nobody knows ALL of the animals! I mean had you ever heard of a "Gerenuk" before? Or a "Whenisu?" Or a "Sunda Colugo?" Well, one of those three I just made up and the other two are real. See how hard it is to know all the animals?  Maybe a Tanehisi is just some type of wild cat with a beautiful, spotted fur coat.

1. A fashionable winter garment - In this case you just thought "Coates" was "coats" like a jacket that you wear when it's cold.  Only this coat is from some Project Runway designer who gave it a fancy, evocative, foreign-sounding name to try to impress the judges. Nice try, but Nina Garcia will not fall for your bullshit.